i think i’ll switch from expensive cuisinart coffee makers to the simple French press. the cuisinarts make decent-enough coffee, but they are just too bothersome and complicated. moving parts, levers and hooks, if you don’t place the basket just right you might get coffee all over the fucking place. fuck technology. plus, it frees up some cabinet space.

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it’s the next day. i had too many interactions yesterday after i started typing into this space.

i spent most of this day writing a probably-too-long story about a certain payphone. it finally disappeared after years of standing idle. i noticed it in 2004. it was next to a cemetery. it was probably the closest payphone to any cemetery in town.

now that i finished the story i remember an idea i had last year. i would make prints of some of my payphone pictures from the last 10 years and place those prints at the exact locations where those payphones used to be. maybe i would laminate them or place them in some kind of plastic or glass frame, and maybe with the words ‘There used to be a payphone here.” because hey, who really misses a payphone once it’s gone? maybe more people would miss them if they knew how many there used to be.

the above-mentioned cemetery payphone story took about 3 weeks to fully compile, since the pictures are from all over the place from 2004 through this month. and then i had to revisit and remember everything i ever knew about that phone.

an honest day’s labors…

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i got a phat new Sangean radio. model # DDR-something, I think, it’s a network wi-fi all-in-one. i just got it and will put it through its paces tonight or tomorrow. it will replace my aging but still functional Bose Wave Radio, which I got years and years ago. i might retire ttthhat radio to the sound board, meaning i’ll leave it plugged in and always turned on so i can record live AM radio as the notion strikes.

i used to record airchecks of the radio, and i posted a bunch of them somewhere on my web site — including the radio news coverage after the first bombing of the World Trade Center. that was some spooky stuff to listen back in on. in some ways the severity of that bomb and the strength of its execution was even more impactful than the 9/11 attacks. unlike the 9/11 attacks, the earlier bombing was actually intended to destroy the building.

news sounds different when it is no longer new. the announcers sound like youngsters and the absence of urgency and of currency makes the content seem flimsy.

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i might be getting back together with my most recent ex. i don’t know, really, though, at this moment. drunken makeout sessions on the streetcorner don’t really count, though the conversation was good, and the encounter was mighty exciting in its dangerous-seeming way.

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i started reading The Metamorphosis, by Ovid. I found a translation online that turns out to be really awful, but an Amazon-bought copy looks promising.

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i have also been catching up on my collection of the Complete Peanuts. i now think i have all the copies that have been published so far, though i’ll double check that later. my plan in buying all these things is partly out of long-time interest in the strip, but also out of a desire to resume a project started some time ago: i went through several strip and identified every piece of music that Schroeder plays, or that appears in the strip. to me one of Schulz’s more underappreciated features was how he used real music in his strips. most comics, when atempting to show music being played, just use what amounts to musical gibberish. Schulz would carefully (and sometimes inaccurately) notate Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, or Rachmaninoff’s G Minor Prelude, but only occasionally would the piece of music be identified. these Complete Peanuts volumes are pretty fully indexed according to who and what concepts are mentioned, but the music that appears remains unindexed. that’s where i come in. haha…

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my last bigass Amazon order arrived today, with a big chunk of it arriving yesterday. that Sangean radio is in there, along with more utilitarian stuff like a 4-month supply of toilet paper, shampoo and conditioner, and exxtra hard drives for the eventual data apocalypse. i need to run backups and move those backups off site. i have done that in the past but not lately. all my redundancy is under one roof, and that ain’t so smart for the worst-case scenario. when the terrorists fly planes into my apartment i want to know i’m covered on redundancy. (you are never covered on redundancy)

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what else is awares in my bottomless life?

going to an interesting concert at Weill next week. a friend of mine died 10 years ago, and soon after a concert in his honor was held at Cooper Union. i didn’t know about the event, and regretted missing it. 10 years later a similar event is scheduled for Weill (part of Carnegie Hall). i picked up a ticket for that show as quickly as i could type in my credit card number…

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it is the next day again. i have been writing into this critical and vital document for 3 fucking days.

i have a headache for all times right now. it is a mixed liquors headache, which is of a different order than your typical hangover. i don’t get hangovers much any more, and i’m not sure htis counts as one, since i think i had a headache before i even went to sleep.

ah well, it’s all good. at least i have no responsibilities — except for a hot date tomorrow. hot hot hot.

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i rambled over to Blissville, seeking out a particularly interesting old abandoned payphone, and finding it still there, affixed to the same wall for at least 5 or 6 years. no handset, and plastered with ads for payphone.com, i think it’s a relic from the late 1990s.

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the more i use the French press for coffee the more annoyed i get at having wasted so much time and effort on these stupidly complicated Cuisinart machines. fuck ’em. FUCK ‘EM ALL. IN THE ASS!

that “in the ass” line is from my corporate days. i went to talk to a boss, who was a real colorful character, and i explained to him that i was having troubles with a data supplier for the web site. i explained the situation, the boss listened, and at the end of my speech he said “You know what, Mark? Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em!” and then he went on with details and explanations, confirming that I should get out of the arrangement with these useless data suppliers.

i said thanks, and i didn’t want to take up any more of his time, so i got up to leave. as i was about to open the door to his office he completed his thought by pointing his long, long index finger at me and saying “Oh Mark? Mark? In the asssss.”

He told me to fuck ’em in the ass. I said “hokay,” and puttered out of his office…

ever since then i blurt out, savant-like, “IN THE ASS!” at seemingly opportune moments.

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